Second Chances
by Dax's10thHost
Summary: Life isn't all chocolate and lollipops, and sometimes friendships are strongest when they threaten to break.
1. One

**Disclaimer: **I do not own nor claim to own any of the following characters, places, or events. Just the story.

**Author's Note: **A Kim/Torres friendship piece spun from the aftermath of "Extreme Risk." Follows the repercussions of Harry's feelings in "The Time Between," though it isn't essential that you read them before reading this.

* * *

I.

Two weeks, and it's getting ridiculous.

True, she knows he'll need time. She needs time. They _all_ need time. But how much time? How long until they see that she's the same B'Elanna Torres? She's still their spitfire chief engineer with a chip on her shoulder the size of the Horsehead Nebula. She hasn't changed.

Much.

She watches him from across the mess hall, watches the way his shoulders slump, the thin seal of his lips, the see-not-see glaze of his eyes, black and glassy like pain. She watches him, and she aches.

She hasn't changed, but that's not what Harry believes.

The food on her plate sends swirls of steam into the air, marking time's march with ever slower and less intricate patterns. The ribbons unfold into the recycled air until even they fade into nothing. Nothing, just like she's feltnotfelt for the past five months.

Harry. Oh Harry, what have I done to you?

Why did she come today? She isn't even hungry.

I came because Tom's watching me, and if I don't act normal, he'll want to know why. The Captain's watching me too. And Chakotay. And Neelix. And maybe even Seven and Tuvok. _Definitely_ the Doctor.

But not Harry.

Harry.

Of all the people she hurt with her secret addiction, Harry's wounds pain her the most. Everyone thinks that Tom and Chakotay are the victims of her almost-tragedy, but she knows the truth of her lies.

It was Harry, in all his baby-faced ways, who suffered the fatal bullet.

She looks at him and can't wipe the image of a falling sword from her mind. Or maybe that ancient French machine—the guillotine. Yes. Her desperation to _feel_ led Harry up those steps, forced him to his knees, and bared his neck to the hungry thunking blade without allowing him his final words.

Oh, Kahless. Kahless, she's killed him. He'll never forgive her now.

Strangely, she doesn't care about the forgiveness so much as she cares about him. She will gladly live as an outcast on this ship for the rest of their 70-year voyage if she can just rinse the pain of betrayal from his eyes.

The pain of _her_ betrayal.

Oh Harry. Harry…

The food is cold and limp and steamless on her plate, dried out and crusting like a triangle of bread left to shrivel in the dirt. But she doesn't care; all she can see is Harry, sitting there pretending to read. Alone and glassy-eyed. And betrayed.

I have to talk to him. But he won't want to see me. He won't even listen.

He never will.

But isn't that why I have to try?

II.

He doesn't look up until she's almost on top of him, and when he does see her, the doors slam shut on his face. A single, sudden _wham_ that echoes through the chasms of her regret. Everything closed, except for his eyes.

And they are daggers plunging into her body.

"Mind if I sit down?" she asks, and he just stares. She fidgets, crossing and uncrossing her arms, wanting him to say something. To let her off the hook. Tell her it's okay to sit down.

But he stays silent.

"Harry, I—"

"Don't."

"Don't what?" she wheezes, as if she's been punched.

"Don't try to apologize B'Elanna. I'm not ready to forgive you."

Apologies are all she has.

"It would be better if you left me alone right now."

Her shoulders sag a little deeper. "When can I talk to you again?"

"I don't know."

"It's been two weeks."

"It took you five months."

"That's different, Harry. You can't—"

"Understand? No, I can't, B'Elanna. And I don't really want to. Because it scares me."

"I'm getting better, Harry. I'm not…" she swallows. "I'm not risking my life anymore."

"I can't believe that. Not right now. Not yet."

She wishes she hadn't come. That she'd just stayed in Engineering, that she'd scrubbed the plasma manifolds instead. But isn't this what she wanted? To be honest with him, and have him be honest with her? To lance this wound before it could fester any longer?

The pain is more than she bargained for.

"Our friendship is important to me, Harry. I don't want to lose it."

"Neither do I."

"But… it needs to flounder a bit, is that what you're saying?"

"It needs to be real."

"Yeah…" she sighs, nails digging into her ribcage. "I understand."

"Then you'll understand why I have to walk away."

"Yes."

But as he takes his plate and leaves, she still staves off the pain of the empty table. And the chair that she never occupied.


	2. Two

III.

He watches as she rakes her fork through the food, self-contained and hunching into her pain. She hasn't said a word all evening, except when she opened the door and saw him there. Even when he'd replicated pizza as the main course, she hadn't argued.

At first, he'd thought it would pass. That she'd confess to a horrible day at work, or blow off some steam about the Doc hounding her with his holocam, or even that Neelix had concocted something especially awful today. But an hour has passed, and the seal of silence on her lips hasn't broken. He begins to wonder if it ever will.

"You wanna talk about it?"

She glances up and shrugs. "Nothing to talk about."

"I find that hard to believe."

Something flickers in her gaze. "Look. I'm sorry if I'm… bad company tonight, but I just don't feel like baring my soul. To anyone. Least of all—" she catches herself. "Never mind."

He stares at her, the questions dancing in his mind. It's times like these that make him wonder if they'll ever have an easy relationship. But then the easy things are never worth it, are they?

"Least of all me? Is that what you were going to say?" his voice is soft. Maybe this is one bomb he can defuse.

"No," she sighs. "No, not at all. I just… it's Harry."

"He's still not talking to you."

"No. And it's been—Tom, it's been two and a half weeks. When will it stop?"

"I don't know."

"Yeah. Well I don't either." She rips off a hunk of crust and chews furiously.

"Have you tried talking to him?"

She snorts. "A lot of good that did me."

"He ignored you?"

"No. He just… stared at me. And then he said he wasn't ready to forgive me. Or trust me."

"To be honest?" he waits for her look before continuing. "To be honest, I'm not ready to trust you either. Not yet."

"Great. Add a paranoid lover to the tip-toeing ensign." Silence. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way."

"It's okay."

She stares unseeingly at the bulkhead, working her jaw and clasping her arms to her chest. "We were working on the slipstream drive today, and it was just… silent. Horrible." A long pause, then she shifts and breaks from the past. "I can understand why you don't trust me. I'd probably be the same way. But have you forgiven me?"

"There was nothing to forgive, B'Elanna. You were dealing with your grief the only way you knew how."

"I didn't have any grief, Tom. That's why I had to use the pain."

The quiet words flay into him, but he refuses to wallow in regret. "You had grief. You just didn't recognize it."

"And that's what made it dangerous."

"Yes."

"So why can't Harry forgive me?"

"We all had some adjusting to do after we found out about you, B'Elanna. We all reacted differently. This is just Harry's way of coping. It doesn't help that we're stuck on this ship, and that you're working on the slipstream drive together. Close quarters make for uneasy healing."

She slides her fork under a piece of lettuce, tipping it onto the table and leaving behind a dab of salad dressing. "Will he ever forgive me?"

"Do you want the pat answer or an honest one?"

"Which do you think?"

"I don't know."

IV.

He finds him in the holodeck, ironically, sulking over a glass of synthehol. How the times have changed.

"Funny. Never expected to see you here. Like this."

"Like what?" he snaps.

"Drowning your sorrows. Staring morosely into the smoke of Sandrine's with the fog of one doomed to die. I thought you didn't drink on duty."

"It's synthehol, and I went off duty hours ago. Why are you here?"

"Why am _I_ here? Oh, I don't know. Maybe because I want to play some pool. Have a drink. Relax. Loosen my collar and live a little." He drops a chair across from Harry's and straddles it, arms resting on the back.

Harry stares at him, brow knit and lips crimped. "What is your problem?"

"My problem? _My_ _problem_?"

"Tom. Why are you here?"

"Maybe because I'm your friend and I came to tell you to drop the jerk routine and talk to B'Elanna."

Ah. There it is. The familiar shuttering of the eyes.

"That's none of your business."

"Well, Harry, I actually think it is. Because you see, she's my girlfriend, and you're my best friend, so if it isn't my business, just whose is it?"

"_Mine_. And B'Elanna's." He takes an angry swallow of his drink.

"She misses you."

"Yeah? Well I miss her too. The _old_ B'Elanna."

"She hasn't changed, Harry. Not the way you think."

"She tried to _kill_ herself, Tom."

"But she's better now."

"Not once. Not twice. But _dozens of times_."

"And you've never messed up before?"

"Not like _that_!"

"_No_, _not_ like that. You're right, Harry. But then again, you've never had someone tell you that the people you bled and sweated and almost _died_ with are all _murdered_, and by the hands of an enemy you can't even put a _face_ to, much less bring to justice!"

The bar has fallen silent, the smoke broken only by Tom's panting breaths and the creaking of Harry's fingers as he knots them into a fist.

"Leave, Tom. Just leave. This isn't an old car you can fix."

"Yeah? Well maybe I don't want to. It's almost not worth it anymore."

His chair scrapes sideways as he stands, the click of his boots the only accompaniment to the scoff that falls from his lips. As he leaves, the ache in his chest blooms into second guesses and the desire to turn around, take it back.

But he knows he did the right thing.

It's up to Harry now.


	3. Three

**A/N:** Takes place after the events of "Timeless," which, if running by original air date, happens three weeks after the events of "Extreme Risk."

* * *

V.

He finds her waist-deep in a gutted console, just another engineer in the throes of reparations. For long moments he stands watching her, wondering why he's there. Wouldn't it be easier to wait for her to come to him?

But she already had come to him. And look at what he'd done with that.

The weight of his conscience digs into his shoulders, just as it has for the past three weeks, and he wants nothing more than to shake it off. But he knows that sulking in Sandrine's—that avoidance—will only make this distance widen. He can't keep running. Not like that day in the mess hall.

But no. He'd needed that. And so had she. They'd needed to reach that impasse, to understand that friendship isn't always easy and forgiveness isn't forgiveness when blurted at the first opportunity.

Then again, he'd never given her the chance to ask for it.

Why was he still standing here?

Electricity crackles inside the console and a muffled growl reaches his ears, followed by a shower of sparks and smoke. She spews forth in a hail of curses and coughs, face blackened and fingers singed, but that's only fuel on the fire.

"Vorik!" she rasps, banging a fist into the bulkhead. "Vorik get your blasted Vulcan hide over here and help me with these circuits."

Unruffled and calm as always, the Vulcan ensign makes his way to his superior. "You wanted to see me, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, I wanted to see you!"

"Lieutenant Carey requested that you help him on the second level when you find some time. I will take care of this."

B'Elanna heaves a weary sigh, running her fingers through her hair and grimacing when they come away ashy. "Great," she mutters, still oblivious to Harry's form. "Scorched hair. Just what I need." For a moment, she grips the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, then sighs and bends to retrieve her toolkit.

He clears his throat and steps forward on one foot. "Hi."

"Harry." She straightens slowly. In her eyes are all the thoughts and memories he wishes he could take back, all the pain he wishes he hadn't caused, the words he swears he never said. This will be harder than he thought. "Is there something you needed?"

"Uh. No. Not really."

"Oh. I'm uh, kinda busy. With the warp core repairs and all."

"About that."

"…Yes?"

"The Captain didn't… tell you the whole story, did she?"

She eases the toolkit to the ground again. "No. She didn't. Just that you sent us the wrong calculations and knocked the slipstream drive offline." She watches him intently. "Is there something you wanted to tell me?"

"It's my fault. The drive failure."

"Well I know. You sent the wrong calculations to _Voyager _and we—"

"No. That's not what I meant. I mean, yes I sent those calculations, and no I didn't at the same time, but that's another story, and I don't want to talk about it right now. But it is my fault, and I wanted to say I'm sorry."

Her ridges furrow. "For knocking the drive offline?"

"No. For not talking to you."

"Oh."

"You're not mad at me?"

"At the moment? No. I'm more mad at Janeway for calling off the slipstream project. We put too much work into it for her to dump it like a breaching core."

"Well that's my fault too. But a future me. An alternate timeline me. One that won't be causing any more trouble for at least fifteen years. I hope."

"You're confusing the heck out of me Harry."

He sighs. "I know. I'm sorry."

"So… I guess you're speaking to me again."

"I never should have stopped."

She looks at him then, sharply and a little queerly. As if he'd betrayed her or something. "No, you did the right thing. We both needed time to adjust. Space, too, but circumstances rather prevented that."

"Tom said you missed me. That you wanted our friendship back."

"If he put you up to this—"

"No! No. He didn't. He just knocked some sense into me." A pause. "So… did you miss me?"

"Of course."

"So I hurt you by not talking."

She sighs. "Yes. But I needed to be hurt. And you needed to sort things out. I understand that now. I'm not saying that I liked it. But things needed to be real."

"Why did you try to kill yourself?"

She blinks, mouth falling open. "I…" Seems to decide something. "I needed to know that I was still alive."

"That's what Chakotay said. And Tom. I didn't believe them, though. People don't try to kill themselves to prove they're still breathing. It doesn't make sense."

"No. But neither does the slaughter of a thousand innocents."

"Are you going to go after them? The Dominion?"

"When we get back?" She swallows. "No. I don't think so."

"How can you be sure?"

"I'm not the hothead everyone thinks I am, Harry. I do have self-control. More than most would think, I might add."

"I didn't meant to—"

"No, it's okay. You're just like the rest of them; you don't have to excuse it."

He frowns. "No, B'Elanna, I'm not just like the rest of them. I'm your friend. Or I was your friend, and I don't want to lose that. Not ever."

She looks up. "What makes me your friend, Starfleet? Why have you stuck around for so long?"

That stops him. Finally, he says, "I guess because you're the first person I had a chance to work with to solve a problem—I mean a _real_ problem. And you didn't call me ensign or use your age as leverage over me. You were just… you."

She is silent, watching him, looking as if she's trying to find a hole in his logic so she can go back to the loneliness and pain.

"You made yourself pay for their deaths, didn't you?" he whispers. "So they'd be avenged."

He watches as the tears spring to her eyes, and they are the only answer he needs.

VI.

He leaves after that, offering no final words, no parting eye contact or hand on her shoulder. Part of him wants to pretend things are normal, but he knows it would be just that—pretending. There are only so many masks he can juggle on such a small ship, and it will take time for him to find his real self again. In the meantime, happy-go-lucky Harry isn't one he's good at preserving.

It's too easy to fall into cynicism, way out here in the Delta Quadrant.

But letting life be real, watching friendships walk through the fire, sealing lips against the trite apologies and refusing to bury the angry words for another day—those are the things that keep them from bitterness, from brawling and anger and the inability to communicate the simplest of sorrows. And ultimately, they're the things that make them strongest.

_To the journey_, he thinks. _May it make the destination sweeter._

FINIS

* * *

**Special thanks** goes to **Alpha Flyer** for her incredible and sorely needed ability to capture the realness of life and to ask the questions that need to be asked of the characters we all hold dear. While the premise for this piece spun from one of my previous works, reading her "At the Bottom of a Glass" while writing this helped to fuel the conversations in previous chapters, particularly the one between Harry & Tom.


End file.
